12.31.2009

How do you tell the sheepthat their wool needs to be shavedexcept for a small tuft on their tails.The sheepdog does bark,and the Shepard shouts commandsBut the ones with the wool over their earswill hear whispers.

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I crafted for myself one the the finest cabinets from the wood of a Tropical Rain forest tree.Each corner was sanded down to the smooth and enriched with 3 layers of a lacquer.I used a brush with one bristle to emphasize my passion for the cabinetry and with a lick of wax, she shined with even more elegance.Folded neatly in each of the 4 drawers were my personal belongings disorderly and unorganized, messy and wrinkled because to me it never matter what was on the inside, but how I wore it.I crafted for myself one of the finest cabinets from the wood of a beautiful Tropical Rain forest tree and carved my initials inside the shape of a key.-------------------------------------------

12.28.2009

Ready to die is one of my favorite albums.Not just from hip-hop but of music period. It's a classic to me because there are no "skipables" and every song provokes many legitimate emotions. Biggie put the raw feelings that we all feel into true lyrics. Many artists today just get on the mic and spit some lyrics that will either a) get the club jumping, b) sound like a phenomenal simile/metaphor, or c) glamorize the amount of money they make. Where's the story? Where's the content? What happened to the truth? Nobody is making "Juicy" or "Brenda Had A Baby" these days.

And there was a huge shift from Big's "Ready To Die" to "Life After Death". He wasn't on the same shit like Jay-Z has been for 10 albums. "Ready To Die" explains why it was rough, what he did to survive, his state of mind and the stress. "Life After Death" explains how he finally made it out alive, his new perspective on life and how he treasures it.

The first track is an intro that visualizes Big's life starting from when his mother struggled to raise him by herself to big robbing a train and eventually leaving prison. "I'm trying to get paid"

I always thought about the meaning behind the title 'Ready To Die'. I've interpreted it a few different ways. One might spend an entire lifetime trying their hardest to get to a certain point, to "make it" or to "get on" and when they finally do reach that point, they're ready to die because there is no higher point. This is the climax. This album also includes Homicidal narratives so another interpretation maybe for a victim to be ready to die. In a diffferent perspective, this album contains Suicidal narratives so Big might be talking about killing himself perhaps in more ways than one. There's a point in a artists life where they exert soo much energy into a masterpiece that it literally drains and exhausts them.

Or this is real suicide note, where Big really feels the raw emotion to be dead. Perhaps he felt he did not fit into this world, or the world did not fit with him. It's impossible to restart on life, Biggie fucked everything up early on and saw no way out but death. "All my life I been considered as the worst. Lyin' to my mother, even stealin' out her purse" "My life is played out like a jheri curl, I'm ready to die"

And the last way I can interpret Ready To Die- Big lived one life and had one personality up until he finally started getting in the booth with Diddy and started forming a new life. Everything was changing. Life was changing. "Now I'm in the limelight 'cause I rhyme tight. Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade" The Christopher Wallace that once was, was forming into a newer character, shed from his very own history.

Big was only 21 when he recorded Ready To Die. What does it take to contemplate death at such a young age? But this is what you get when you are hungry and you actually live this. To many listeners such as myself, these words appeal to me as...something hardcore with dark context. But to the artist, it was real life. And it was daily. As a young writer, I find it difficult to please the reader and incorporate a true deeper meaning so I'll often leave one or the other out. Biggie made it possible to create a masterpiece suitable for kickin' back and bumpin' or to find a poetical truth in the context.

12.23.2009

" 'Cause sometimes you feel tired,feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up.But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strengthand just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give upand not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse..."

12.18.2009

Today I encountered an older woman who could only leave her house if she was accompanied because "the world is an ugly place".

At first I thought this lady was exaggerating but I started thinking about it more. I can see where she's coming from. Damn near every corner of Los Angeles is grimey and cold and the streets aren't for the weak. Not everybody can walk around with their chest out so the ones who can't must walk every block with a hint of raw fear.

When you wake up in the morning, do you think?Do you acknowledge the new day and do you know what a NEW day means? It's like-a new day is another paragraph in the novel of your life. The next 24 hours is a chance to back up your thesis statement. The Reader wants to know if the Protagonist is going to maintain or even develop new morals and beliefs.

There's an incredible difference in LIVING A LIFE and LIVING YOUR LIFE.I do not like publicizing my thoughts on life because they are MY personal grand opinions but, check it... I've always butted heads with my supervisors and managers because I've always liked to do things differently but still get the same results. Why follow the black and white to get black when you can use every single color and get the same result?! You know what I mean?Not everybody needs to follow the A to B, B to C, C to D method to establish a good life. It's more about how you handle each "letter", in this example, and where it takes you and how far it takes you.

At the moment that you are reading this, YOU are the oldest that you have ever been and the youngest you'll ever be. At this moment, everything you do will have a greatest affect on anything you can develop/establish for yourself later in life.

Every new day should be a new sentence in the current paragraph of your novel. And fuck it, even the greatest of writers Re-write bronze sentences to make them golden. The pencil is what you see in the mirror.

So to be afraid of what roams in the streets is to be afraid of what is in you. Complete yourself before someone/something completes it for you.

12.08.2009

"I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action."

12.07.2009

In my opinion, Hip Hop is not about image and "peacocking" and overexagerating lyrics to show off material things. When the Sugar Hill Gang first came out, the sound of what they were doing was FUNKY. It sounded different than anything else out at that time. They used unusual instrument combinations and a light hearted flow. That's what started Hip Hop and that's what Hip hop still is to me. An artist who can conceive a unique sound and combine it with poetic lyrics sounding like nothing else out there.

"The circumcision has already begun Desensitizing the very thing or thang that brought you into this motherfucker in the first place. And when I say "motherfucker" I do mean "motherfucker" Because Mother Earth is dying and we continue to fuck her to death. Play with your own score sheet, become the master of your own bation And yes, God is watching you, but no need to be embarrassed For the future is in your hands, no the future is in your hand Play with your own score sheet"

Can I hide from this worldLike a diamond rock blurred somewhere in the dirtOr other precious jewels still unknown and unheard,Unstirred until "discovered" was the word.These thoughts seek the darknessAnd she provides support for them, a colorless harness in her ways.And my days remain filled with the colors of the night.Dark greens, dark blues and dark redsAnd the stars provide their hues of soft yellowsTo imitate the Radiance thats at her best at noon.But my deep sky has been caressing a maroon moonWith an orange shine that bleeds onto the stone roads of my Stone City sitting aloneLike a complex thought...Like a beautiful soul that fought her heartUntil she was pushed over the edge of a cliff...Well to say I saw her silently slip down to the barren bay made me believe that even the most radiant stars tend to fallAnd fall to a deceiving depth, deep down into the darkness.

-I wrote this my Senior year, 2008. Around that time, I liked to link the ends of each piece to the beginning but not make it so obvious. Then I started practicing and focusing on Alliteration and hiding the meaning all together. I learned to use metaphors to show metaphors. Then I learned to use metaphors to show metaphors hidden by other metaphors. Of course I'm the only one who can decipher everything I write, and I like it that way, but it made writing poetry A LOT more difficult. That's what I love. I've grown to hate END RHYME and SIMILIES and DRAMATIC LINES. Anybody can do that and to me, that's what takes away from poetry.

"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just.' It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just.' The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just,"...-MLK-1967,at Manhattan's Riverside Church.

12.05.2009

I will soon conquer my pops on the chess board.Every move he makes, he stops the game and tells me a lesson about how that move relates to life. The moves I was making, he pointed out were mistakes that you can easily make. He then tells me to Undo that move and choose another. Something I can never do in real life.

I was sooooo close to winning! I had his queen cornered with 3 valuable pieces. He advanced his pawns. I kept getting closer to his Queen. I thought I had her, which would lead to me winning the game. His pawn advanced and eventually became a Queen, putting my King in Checkmate. I thought I had the Queen but I lost sight of my other valuable pieces. If you know me well, you would understand the IRONY in this.

11.27.2009

I didn't plant the seeds.I expected brilliant buds to bloom and blossom.I anticipated swarms of bees to spread the pollen and do half of the labor for me. In theory, this plant would yield petals upon petals, reaching for the stars from sturdy stems.It's called phototropism when the flowers grow towards the source of light, and I was the sun.This plant pleaded for my water yet never needed my rays. Through my unconditional passion, I conceived a blind plant. The roots where intertwined and double knotted as to avoid any usage of insufficient nutrients.Who was really blind? I found myself drowning a cactus.I'd bred a plant whose buds attracted me psycho-actively. What was I in love with?I didn't plant any seeds.It's called thigmotropism when the plant grows amongst an object-a wall, a boulder, fence.My heart was an obstacle that these stems traversed and encompassed, rejoining after devouring. Her leaves deceived.I gave rise to a plant with pretty petals but I never plucked. Pollen was poison.One day, I'll ask her: If I would've planted the seeds, an inch apart, in a pot hand crafted from the heart, would you have...would you have...Would you have grown for me?

The other day, in waiting in line for twilight at the Grove, I sat behind this group of girls. Had to be 17, 18. I had no problem with their immaturity and stupid ass giggling but what finally pissed me off-this gay couple walked past us holding hands and these girl waited until they passed to look at each other and say "that's disgusting."

All I could do was shake my head, mainly because it wasn't their fault. I don't know their religion, don't know how they were raised and stuff like that so I couldn't really blame them. What disturbed me the most was the word "disgusting". That is the picture that the media and politicians have painted for us, for many in my generation. We have come to believe that two people in love is disgusting. We have come to believe that the plight of a particular group is disgusting. We have to come to believe that labeling and prejudging is still tolerated only if it is aimed at people different from us. None of this sounds acceptable to me yet here I stood, listening to my contemporaries perpetuating the cycle of hate and prejudice. That is disgusting to me.When i hear this type of shit, I can only imagine what the whites would say when they saw a black marrying a white woman years and years ago. They wouldn't say "disgusting" under their breath, they would do something much more horrible and graphic for me to even put into words.Disgusting?!

What disgusts me is the Bloods and Crips killing each other every day.What disgusts me is all my high school friends getting trashed and drunk damn near every night.What disgusts me is the "History" that we all were taught in high school.What disgusts me is the amount of mislead teens, everywhere I go.What disgusts me is the current idea of "love".What disgusts me is Two girls, One cup.

I can understand if Homosexuality bothers you or you don't agree with it. Does that give you the right to announce that shit? And nobody can ever explain why they are so against homosexuality either! I say I hate spinach because that shit tastes nasty! I say I hate Ford Mustangs because the quality is incredibly inferior to Chevy.

If your argument against Homosexuality is that it goes against your religion, then JUST DON'T BE GAY YOURSELF! Your don't go against your God by being straight however you DO go against your God by spreading hate. Don't be mad because other people are defying YOUR religion.

11.21.2009

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved so much could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can’t meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren’t a bad person. One night stands and random hookups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot doesn’t seem as fun. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future, and making a life for yourself and maybe for someone else…and while winning the race would be great, right now you’d just like to be a contender. What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it in some way or another. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure the whole thing out. “Life is not measured by the amount of breaths we take but by the amount of moments that take our breath away.”

11.01.2009

#1. College Dropout- Last CallFor lines such as "My money was thinner than Sean Paul's goatee hair Now Jean Paul Gaultier cologne fill the air", "Now I could let these dream killers kill my self-esteem Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams" and also"I turned around and replied, why yes but I prefer the term African American Express" This was the best beat on College Dropout, in my opinion.

#2 808's And Heartbreaks- Street LightsEvery time I listen to this song I picture cruising through Downtown Long Beach or Downtown Los Angeles with those orange and yellow glowing street lights and stop lights. It's a very mellow song and sets a cool, easy mood.

#3 808's And Hearbreaks- Pinocchio StoryJust listen to the song. Tell me you can't feel the emotions. "I got everything figured out But for some reason I can never find what real love is about".

10.27.2009

I consider Huey P. one of the most influential persons in my life. I just want you to hear some of his words that I consider genius.We were never taught about Huey P. or really even the Black Panther Party. If the teacher ever did say something about them, it was about their "militancy", right?

Newton called on the Panthers to "serve the people" and to make "survival programs" a priority within its branches. The most famous and successful of their programs was the Free Breakfast for Children Program, initially run out of an Oakland church.

Other survival programs were free services such as clothing distribution, classes on politics and economics, free medical clinics, lessons on self-defense and first aid, transportation to upstate prisons for family members of inmates, an emergency-response ambulance program, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and testing for sickle-cell disease. There was also a Ten Point Program...

The Ten Point Program was as follows:

1. We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities' education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society. 2. We want completely free health care for all black and oppressed people. 3. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people, other people of color, and all oppressed people inside the United States. 4. We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression. 5. We want full employment for our people. 6. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our Black Community. 7. We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings. 8. We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. 9. We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in U. S. Federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country. 10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of modern technology

This isn't about Black History. This is what I consider genius. The words, the power behind the words, and the future of those words.

Hit the Flickr here.The homie Gian has mad skills behind the photo lens. As good as I already look, he makes me look even better. Younger than me, Gian can do to still-life what I can do with words in poetry. Game recognize game. Goes to show that talent is not acquired at a given age, it's obtained through dedication and persistence. The first poems I ever wrote, I look to as garbage now.But now, I've grown and so has the level of my poetry.

10.19.2009

"Two women were killed early Saturday morning after they were involved in a traffic collision on the 15 Freeway.California Highway Patrol officers responded to the northbound 15 Freeway just south of Airport Drive at 2:33 a.m. after receiving reports of a collision.When they arrived, they learned that a Honda Accord parked in the emergency lane was rear-ended by a 2004 Ford Taurus, according to information from the San Bernardino County Coroner's office.The Honda had four women inside. Angela McGowan of Moreno Valley and another 18-year-old woman were pronounced dead at the scene. The remaining two women were last listed in serious to critical condition, according to the release. The woman's name will be released once her family has been notified."

Life is not short. Everyday is made to be beautiful and it's on us to live it to the fullest. Nothing is written. I remember Raelene for singing and humming to herself just about every class period I had with her. She had joookes too.

10.18.2009

This post is in response to a large number of girls taking shots at guys on facebook/myspace talking about "all guys are players/cheaters/pigs/etc..." I'm going to try to be unbiased with this post.

If you act like all you have to offer is sex, that's all we can use you for. How can we appreciate you as a woman if you don't carry yourself as a respectable woman? It's all about the way you portray yourself and what you choose to portray. If you have 400 pictures on your myspace photo albums and 970 pictures on facebook, all of them showing your tits & ass, sexy poses, caked up eye shadow, bra shots and shit like that then how is a guy going to be appreciate you for your mind, your true value? To me, it shows that your mind is translucent.

Girls are so quick to cry and shit when they get cheated on but never bother to ask what the cause was. I would say 95% of the time, guys cheat because their girlfriends aren't stimulating either their physical or mental needs sufficiently. These girls out here care too much about displaying their relationships of facebook/myspace that they think that thats what the relationship is for. Know what I'm talking about? A relationship should not be for the sole purpose of "bigging" up your own personal image. Shit like that just weakens to person advertising it. It shows how weak your heart really is.No one should ever be able to break your heart. I believe Religion and Family bonds lie within your heart so if you're constantly putting it out there RAW for someone to stab it, what happens to your religion, your beliefs, and your bonds? Does it shatter into fragments as well? You see, what I have a problem with is everyone saying God and Family come before love and everything in general yet become sooooo depressed and emotional when the love/feelings aren't reciprocated. Feel me? My heart will truly be broken when God stomps over to me on some "Dedan...you're a real good guy but...I don't love you like you love me." Same with my momsduke. You know why? Because there is only ONE of each. No replicas, duplicates, nothing. If a girl doesn't love me back then FUCK IT! There's a cool BILLION more on this planet and it will be a fun adventure to find one that's 100 times better!

Love is a currency and we are all Billionaires so don't trip over ONE lost dollar.

10.11.2009

"In the time of your life, live so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life that your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere and when it is found, bring it out of the hiding place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue and whatever heart it may have driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of this world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior to no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself, no man's guilt is yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil, these understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live so that, in that wonderous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it."

Amongst my madnessMy color receptors register this radiant yellowAnd refract the image beyond my retina.These sudden flashes of a yellow dress interrupt my dreams and defer my sleep.These quick fluttering fragments flee before I can fully comprehend her beauty.I reflect back to the first grade when I would find the most brilliant yellow to fill in the five points of a shooting star.It was always a particular yellow that-I never physically felt the material of her dress but I imagine each stitch was sown from the thread of a blazing sun much more superior to ours with gaseous yellows that glow amongst infinite darkness.Each vision is a super nova and its luminosity blinds me with a foggy cloud of disintegrated iridescence incoherent with our spectrum of colors.I can't physically have her so I traveled to find a yellow that matches the magnitude of the secret moments where I mentally have her.In my journeys through jungles, I've seen Golden Canaries constructing nests in trees and swam amongst spongy yellow coral reefs in the Mediterranean sea.As unique as they may seem, they weren't the particular yellow I see in my dreams.However, there was a scene...I found an elementary school in East Afrika with yellow hallways and doors.The children dipped their hands in yellow paint and waved as I took a photo.This portrait of 20 smiles and 40 painted palms d'ore worth 1000 words I value more than gold and diamonds dug from Sierra Leon shores.I've been twisting and turning this rubicks cube with 80 tones of yellow tint attempting to match tiny squares into the image to keep her glow in physical print.Vogue, Vanity Fair, nor Victoria's Secret have ever printed such a vixen that I envision.Only universal variants of unreal women-Vapor amongst paper.I journeyed to admire every hue and once I finally found the picture, I discovered your dress was actually blue...

What I did with this piece...took me about 2 months to write. I wanted to make it a narrative-type joint. First off-this really happened to me. I kept thinking about a picture and in my mind and kept imagining the girl was wearing a yellow dress up until I finally found the damn picture. The dress was actually BLUE. The way I felt is what provoked this piece. I wanted the reader to picture the girl in this yellow dress and get to the end and be like "WTF!?" That's why I didn't add anything after the last line after I glorified the yellow. That type of cliffhanger feeling is what I had.

I didn't use a lot of rhyme scheme because that can take away from the picture. It's like-sacrificing what you really want to say just to make it flow. The incomplete lines and absence of rhymes give a sort of fragmented flow, which is what I felt when I tried to remember not only who the girl was, but also the color dress and why/when I got the picture. This also pays homage to Langston Hughes' poem "A Dream Deferred":

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I gave it 2 titles because my narration has a sort of Cause/Effect thing going on. Feel me?And also, the Palme D'or is the highest prize awarded to competing films at the Cannes Film Festival which my boy Quentin Tarentino won for Pulp Fiction."Say what again. SAY WHAT AGAIN. I dare you, I double dare you, motherfucker. Say what one more goddamn time."

"...Return of the gangsta, thanks ta'them niggas who got them kidswho got enough to buy an ouncebut not enough to bounce them kids to the zooor to the park so they grow up in the dark neverseein' light so they end up being like yo' sorry assrobbin' niggas in broad ass daylightGet down!"

10.10.2009

Space Jams. Back when I was into shoes, I was always on the look out for a pair of crisp Space Jams. It's all good, now I just have to wait till late November to camp out for hours due to the amount of hypebeasts in Southern Cali. Middle Finger to all you size 9's out there camping in front of Proper and shit.Morrissey concert at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. December 4th. Where my Moz fans at?FIFA 10. I've gotten waaay to competitive with this game. I don't like Madden anymore and no one can beat me in Fight Night so I've gotten hooked on Fifa. I hope the new one has Costa Rica.Out October 20th.Dr. Dre's Detox. Aren't we all?! I've been hearing so many rumors about artists collaborating on different tracks-shits driving me CRAZY! Just give us ONE track ANDRE! I feel like a damn crack fiend. "C'mon, baby! Just oooonne! It's alll I neeeeeed!!" I do appreciate Dre actually taking time to produce a HIGH quality album, just like Eminem. Other artists out here think its necessary to put out garbage every month with bullshit Mixtapes and collab's with trendy artists (Wayne, Jeezy, Drake...) You have to take in consideration that Dre's son recently passed away. I think Dr. Dre is soo far beyond anyone else in the game. Far more mature. I mean Jay-Z still talking about selling cocaine on his 10th album! Word, jigga? Wooord? Respect, Andre. [No release]Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I mean daaamn, how much realer can they make this damn game? The next step is to just enlist yourself in the mo'fo' Navy or some shit. Soooo much time will be wasted due to this. I can get emotional, especially when someone Knifes me before I knife them. You know what I'm talking about. [November]

And also, I AM looking forward to the next college semester. The feeling of completing all your classes with good grades is such a good feeling/relief. I feel like Rocky Balboa racing to the top of the stairs.

"Hype all you want over a pair of shoes. If you don't plan on wearing them, you are only fooling yourself. It's cool to keep a pair of kicks on ice for a little while, but keeping a pair of shoes on ice for pure bragging purposes, or just for the self reassurance that you have "shoe game", or that you're a "shoe head" is just another way of clowning yourself that you're not a hypebeast. WEAR YOUR KICKS! ENJOY THEM!"

9.30.2009

Lets cheatAnd advance ourselves, our territories, our politics and our culturesNot beyond intangible lines of maps and blinking radarsWith blimps of potential threats and hazards, but underThe plumbing and foundations of the current Hippocratic futureForming before our eyes in the forms of excuses due to insufficiency.The Black Panthers and glamorized boycotts made noise.We can be discreet.In the midnight darkness, with ski-masks, we can all beLeaders or remain immobilized by the current modern stigmas.These myths and attitudes that have replaced figures of powerAnd stereotypes must be the first to be thrown out the window.A mob of black cannot be seen in the 25th hourBut the footprints will remain permanent, suggesting an imminentThreat to perceptions of our society.You can believe in Failure or you can believe in Defeat.The former offers the wisdom necessary to avoid the latter.What we choose for ourselves to believe is what orchestrates our progression to dominance.Once pushed to the margins, we will be amongst greater headlinesThat will never be printed in order to avoid the chaos of propaganda.A circus of flames, spreading like wildfire fitting in the eye of a needle, burning every street.It takes the heart of one matched by a million to engineer aMovement motivated by thousands of injustices and insufficiency.The writing on the wall is not graffiti, they are my demands and the corresponding numbersAre deadlines.There's no need to fear a system that we can beat.It's impossible to predict the outcomes of massive unity.The numbers of them are normal.The numbers of us can cause panic when we emerge from hidden depths like a black smokeWith advanced territories, education and tactics, unafraid of the common stigma.Only then will my dream be complete.

Very often, I lose focus in class and stop paying attention. I'll get the grasp of what I need to know for the next quiz and anything else coming up, then completely zone out. I'm going to start writing a quick piece every time I zone out to see what I can come up with in the 2, 3, or even 4 hour class (I have two 4-hour classes). Today I started writing down small phrases quoted from my professor and put them in my own words to keep the topic together.

This is what I am capable of creating in less than 3 hours. I didn't edit any lines, or go back and change something. I think I'll continue to work on this and tweek it a little bit. I don't think I'm finished with this.

9.22.2009

Most sharks need to constantly swim in order to breathe and cannot sleep very long, if at all, or they will sink.

Be a shark. The day you stop swimming is the day you start slipping and let others catch up to you. Don't get eaten up by a school of Rookie-ass guppies just because you wanted to relax. And in order to be at the top of the food chain, you must prove yourself to be a superior predator. Must be Frightening yet fascinating. Be a shark. Be a threat.

Some sharks sleep with only one brain hemisphere at a time, thus maintaining enough consciousness to breathe and to watch for possible predators and other threats.

9.20.2009

"Right now, poised at the edge of the galaxy, Emperor Zurg has been secretly building a weapon with the destructive capacity to annihilate an entire planet! I alone have information that reveals this weapon's only weakness. And *you*, my friend, are responsible for delaying my rendezvous with Star Command!""YOU! ARE! A! TOYYYYY! You aren't the real Buzz Lightyear! You're - you're an action figure!" "You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity. "

We can all agree that everyone just wants everything to work out, right?

I see too many of my friends putting their entire lives out on Myspace and Facebook updates just for attention. Apparently, everyone's been going through some shit and never know how to deal with it. Thing about it is-it's almost as if they believe its ABNORMAL to face obstacles and tough challenges. It's like they expect to play a perfect game of Monopoly without ever getting sent to jail, landing on someone's property with houses and paying no taxes. In order to pass Go and collect those $200, you've got to play by the dice and head to wherever they take you.

I hate seeing people with shit like "OMG...FML!" Can anything be so serious as to force you to say Fuck Your Life?"No milk for my cereal...FML""Still Hungover...FML""Class at 10...FML"

Simple things.If you want to be apart of the simple things of life, you're going to be respected as a simple minded person. To me, "simple things of life" include activities that don't take you anywhere such as being in a gang/clique, getting "shitfaced" on the weekends, weed...shit like that.There's more to life than letting something or someone take control of you.

Being in a gang does not take you anywhere nor does it bring you anything but discern for your contemporaries. Unless your gang is bringing in some kind of monthly revenue or some shit, where are you going to go with being a member? Can't put it on a resume and it damn fucking sure does not count as community service. If you want to be loyal, be loyal to your blood family and I don't mean crip/blood family. I mean be loyal to the man who you came out of from conception and the woman who you came out from at birth.

Get to making love and art. Stop wasting time getting wasted.Stop asking to follow your damn Twitter. Who cares what show you're watching, what fast food is good, or Drake/Lil Wayne lyrics. Shit like this makes me wish Malcolm X had a Twitter:@MalcolmX:Hey guyz, going on a pilgrimage to Mecca. @MalcolmX: The Nation Of Islam iz a bunch of H8terz.

9.13.2009

"Now before I finish.... let me just say I did not come here to show out.. did not come here to impress you. Because to tell you the truth when I leave here I'm GONE! And I don't care WHAT you think about me - but just remember.. when it hits the fan brother..... whether it's next year, ten years, twenty years from now.. you'll never be able to say that these brothers lied to you JACK!"

9.12.2009

9.09.2009

"Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress."-Nicholas Murray Butler

Strong progress takes a lot of hard work and dedication. I constantly work toward my future and the main reason why I'm comfortable with such hard work is because I'm doing what I love, what I'm passionate about. I've recently inherited more responsibilities and I see the ways in which I've grown throughout the past two years.

I remember seeing my dad having virtually his entire business in his briefcase. Hundreds of papers, the manila folders, ball point pens and business cards all disorganized in this brown leather briefcase. My mom would have her purse and fashion portfolio and it seemed like everything that was important was always in their clutches. I noticed this earlier this week when I was stepping up to my door and couldn't open it because I had my messenger bag, backpack, gym duffle bag and a few bags of groceries.

We are all in charge of our rate of progression and within that, the rate that we grow. Two integral points in life, in my opinion, are sacrifice and priority. Especially now as a full-time college student, in asking myself what grade I deserve, I look at the time I sacrificed and how dedicated I was. There's a quote by someone out there stating "the more you sacrifice, the greater the reward at the end." When you see that "A" at the end of the semester, reflecting on all the "kick-backs" and shit that you missed out on just to study suddenly seems irrelevant.

And then there's priority. It's one thing to acknowledge that school come before anything but it's another to actually put it into affect. My life is in the books, in my poetry, and in the Pharmacy so I don't have time to post up hundreds of pictures on Facebook and shit. I see all of the pictures of my friends that go out for a night and take 300 pictures all in the same position, with the same people-putting up a front as if they're rockstars doing big things. We're college students and the majority of us are broke. Ya'll showing up to the "clubs" in a damn Toyota Tercell with at least 6 cats deep trying to wild out at a FLYER PARTY. SMH.

So progress. Advance beyond what is expected of you. Don't just do what is required of you but exceed the mandatory minimum.

9.02.2009

Drederick Tatum is my favorite character on The Simpsons. Maybe because he's based on Mike Tyson but every show with Drederick is hilarious! I've always wanted to shape my goatee exactly like his and get a Four-pack like his. Of all the celebrities that are parodiedon The Simpsons, I think this one is the best because the Mike Tyson lisp is and language is on point.

Tatum: I think Homer Simpson is a good man. I like him. I have nothing against him, but I will definitely make orphans of his children.

and also in the same episode-

Jimbo: Hey Simpson, wanna trade belts?

Bart: Well, not really, 'cause yours is just a piece of extension cord.

9.01.2009

This is how you win scholarships for $2000. You gotta come correct, keep it 100. Here's a snippet of the essay I wrote.

My primary reason for pursuing a career in the health care industry is because I feel it is the field I can make the biggest impact in. I have always lived in underserved communities where disadvantaged families struggle to afford the appropriate health care and parents must resort to a lower quality for themselves and their children. I have always felt that one man should not receive a higher quality health care over another man simply because he has more money. I chose to pursue a degree in the health care industry, specifically CharlesDrewUniversity, because my mission runs along with theirs. Aimed at providing patient care with excellence and compassion and transform the health in the underserved communities where I am from.

As a Costa Rican, I am proud to represent an underrepresented country through my educational endeavors. I hope to give back to the community by setting a positive example to the youth by volunteering and being involved in mentoring programs especially to those that wish to pursue a career in the health care industry.

(This was one of those "hurry up and snap the damn picture!" kind of smiles)

8.30.2009

Peanut butter and banana sandwiches are perfect for snacking in between classes. Say you have an hour and a half break, eat one like-15 minutes before your next class and you won't be feeling drained. I use wheat/12-grain bread for mine and it's best when the banana's are all freckled up.Slather up the PB & J on both slices and use the whole banana. Easy to make, word to Homer:

"Look like a black wookie when he let his beard grow weirdo, brown skin'ded always kept his hair low. rumor has it its a S-curl accident. DOOM was always known to keep the best girls backs bent."-MF Doom, Hoe Cakes

8.20.2009

I'm tired of seeing cops handing out citations at every train stop. I see the type of people receiving them; they are ALL lower and middle class and even HOMELESS. Some may argue that it's just $1.25 for the metro pass but on the real, that $1.25 is a cool gallon of milk, bag of bread, or a cheeseburger. Or maybe that $1.25 has to go to getting onto the next one or two buses that these people need to get on in order to get to work.

It angers me to see an older Hispanic woman holding three kids standing in front of a cop who's getting her information for the citation. She doesn't even speak Spanish.It angers me to see an unfortunate homeless man explaining to the cop that he's HOMELESS and there's no point in giving him a $250 ticket. He doesn't even have a home.

So the cop writes the ticket in full understanding that the person couldn't pay for the pass, so they make them pay a $250 ticket which they can never afford to pay which will soon double and then and they issue a warrant out and there's court fees and shit...

All this because the LAPD needs to meet their fucking quota on citations for the month. What's the other reasoning? 3 police officers at each stop that I pass (Norwalk, Lakewood, Long Beach, Wilmington) means 12 cops that could be out in the streets on some gang/drug patrol. There are more than 10 other stops on the Green line only. How about the Blue line? I'd be happier if all these cops were in the streets writing speeding tickets or something, just SERVING AND PROTECTING us instead of trapping us.

They don't understand...A dollar twenty five can me alive.Constantly harass me because I can't afford the transportation fee.I can barely provide my family with groceries and it's a harsh reality."My stop is right here, can you please let me go?"And the cop just laughs and says "no".I was saving my scraps of dough to make my car start.Now I have no choice but to pay the fine and save the heart of mine.

8.18.2009

In my ode to my neglection of love,I will state my many attempts and failures to prove my theory of a declining quality of the doctrine based upon the false, deficient conceptions and broadened, generalized, incompetent idealizations.My ode to my neglection of love will be a declaration of exile until this inept perception of love is reinstated as an idea highly individualized as an intimate interpretation of infatuation where expression holds meaning, meaning it is incapable of duplication.This degree of convenient feelings has been glamorized into a fashion and has deminished the value of the terms Love, Lover, Lovely, and Loving.In todays time, reputable romantics are as quantifiable as needles in haystacks and healthy heart attacks.In my ode to my neglection of love, I will address the calamity of convenient companionships that so candidly contradict the current, subpar specifications of love suggesting a strong absence of substantial qualities.These immature perceptions of "love" have provoked my pessimistic promises to never proceed with such perverse practices."I love you" has become a powerful, paradoxical phrase and only takes away from what it used to mean.In my ode to my neglection of love,I will acknowledge the absence of true chemistry.This degree of convenient feelings has been compromised into a fashion, deminishing the value of the terms Love, Lover, Lovely, and Loving-revealing the arrogance of the one who Loved.This is not an ode but rather a rough draft. The final will be carved in stone- or rather within the heart of the woman crafted from my rib bone.

I wrote a piece sometime ago talking about why I stopped writing about love. A type of poem that is dedicated to or praises a certain subject is called an Ode. Many writers write odes about a certain love or feeling from love, but fuck that. I've been neglecting love because there was once a time where it was truly valuable but now, love just seems to get tossed around with no discretion. I hate that. But whatever. I'm the writer and I want you to feel my perspective.By the way, God crafted Eve out of Adam's rib thus the metaphor. If you want me to explain this piece more in depth, just holla at me. Don't want ya'll to be like: